


The Chance to Confront the Choice

by AstroGirl



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Repressed Feelings, Temptation, The Arrangement (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23677813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: The beginning of the Arrangement and Aziraphale's first temptation.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57
Collections: Genprompt Bingo Round 17





	The Chance to Confront the Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gen Prompt Bingo, for the prompt "Case/Mission Fic." It may be arguable exactly how well this qualifies, but it definitely does involve a mission.

"Hypothetically..." says Aziraphale. He stops. He can't believe he's saying this. But surely there's no great harm in hypothetical thinking? Perhaps it's even likely to be useful. Give him an insight into what the old serpent is up to. Yes. No real harm at all.

He takes a sip of his wine to cover up his hesitation. It's an acceptable vintage, but only barely. He sighs. "Hypothetically," he says, giving the demon across the table from him what he hopes is a hard-to-read look, "if I _were_ to agree to this... this arrangement you propose. What would I be doing?"

Crowley waves a dismissive hand. "Nothing too difficult," he says. "Nothing too horrible."

Aziraphale sips his wine again, raises his eyebrows, and waits for him to go on.

Crowley leans forward in his chair a little, his body rearranging itself from a spiky sprawl into something a little more focused. But his tone is oh-so-casual. Aziraphale has learned to be wary of that tone. "There's this priest I'm supposed to tempt," he says. "He's considering fornication."

Aziraphale has never felt very strongly one way or another about what the humans do with their Earthly lusts, but something about the way the demon rolls the word around in his mouth causes a strange hitch in Aziraphale's breathing, and he comes dangerously close to inhaling his wine. He discreetly miracles away the tickle in his throat, sets his drink down on the table, and drags his mind back to the rest of Crowley's statement. Which, he realizes with what might almost be relief, he really ought to be shocked by.

"A man of God?" he says. "Certainly not!"

"Oh, come on." Crowley leans back again, resuming his sprawl where it left off. 'Isn't like it's unusual, is it? Anyway, God doesn't care if Her priests use the genitals She gave them. It's the humans who made that rule."

"That is true," Aziraphale says, folding his hands primly in front of him. "But Heaven certainly _does_ care about breaking one's vows."

"Even if they're misguided?" says Crowley, sitting forward again. His tone is reasonable, oddly gentle, even, and Aziraphale finds himself hesitating for reasons he doesn't entirely understand.

"Yes," he says, finally but firmly.

"It's in Venice," says Crowley. "You love Venice. Think of the food, angel."

He thinks of it, memories of flavors ghosting along his tongue, and finds himself licking his lips. "I _do_ like Venice," he concedes. How nice it would be, to walk in the Venetian sunlight. How long has it been since he was last there?

"And I'd owe you the next one," Crowley says. "Next time you need a blessing done, somewhere you don't want to go--" Aziraphale wonders why on Earth Crowley wouldn't want to go to Venice, but he supposes there must be all sorts of demony business to attend to here instead. Or maybe he simply doesn't want to make the sea voyage. He's never been terribly fond of ships, not since the Flood. "--I'd have to do it for you," Crowley finishes.

" _Have_ to?" Aziraphale says.

"'Course," Crowley says. "Deal with a demon. 'S binding. Everybody knows that. So, next time you want me to do a blessing, or... or to tempt someone into doing _good_..."

"It's not tempting," Aziraphale says, "if it's towards good."

"Whatever!" Crowley waves this quibble away with a sweeping gesture. "I'd do it, whatever it is. Whatever you need. I'll even do the whole 'I am an angel of the Lord, be not afraid' bit if you like."

Aziraphale purses his lips a little. "I don't do that."

"I've seen you do it."

"I don't do it _often_."

Crowley waves that away, too. "What do you say?" The look on his face, beneath his smoky lenses, is hopeful. Friendly. It isn't an expression Aziraphale ought to trust. Probably.

But the idea of getting a demon to do a blessing... That's... That's _something_ , surely. No angel has ever done that. Perhaps it might even be a first step towards... towards... he isn't entirely certain what. But he's never truly believed that demons were inherently unforgivable. Not all of them. Perhaps if Crowley tries it, he might like it. He's done a few things in the past, that, well...

Crowley is staring at him expectantly. "Angel? C'mon."

Aziraphale closes his eyes and thinks of Venice. He sighs. "I suppose," he says, opening his eyes again, but not quite meeting the darkness that covers Crowley's, "that I could at least go and see. And decide what to do after I observe the situation."

Crowley leans forward further, his elbows sprawling across the table, and grins. His face is a little too close now, close enough for Aziraphale to see his serpent's eyes shining happily behind the black glass, but Aziraphale can't seem to make himself pull back. "You won't regret it," Crowley says.

"I think I already do," Aziraphale murmurs. It seems like the sort of thing he ought to say. But he finds himself smiling back, just a little. Only just a little.

He quickly covers it up with a very large gulp of wine.

**

He finds the man he's looking for in a nondescript tavern, sitting by himself and staring into his cup.

The priest is young, younger than Aziraphale was expecting. He has a sweet, earnest face. Which means nothing, of course. Aziraphale has, over the millennia, met many cruel men with pleasant faces. But he senses nothing particularly evil in this one, and he likes to believe that his instincts in such matters are good.

Well, he decides, as he settles himself at a table nearby, perhaps that is why Hell has taken an interest in him. Priests who disregard their vows the moment they are spoken, who use their positions for personal gain rather than as a means to do the work of the Lord are terribly common these days. Ubiquitous, even. But Hell need hardly waste its time with such men. Why concern yourself with securing souls that are already likely to be yours in the end? But to corrupt a good man, to bring low one who might have served as a shining example to others...

Oh dear. Oh dear. He cannot be party to this, surely? To be complicit in dooming a decent man to Hell? What sort of angel _is_ he, that he is even considering this?

A serving girl comes to take his order. So absorbed is he in these distressing thoughts that he actually waves her away. 

The priest looks over at him as he does so, then looks back down into his drink. He seems disappointed, as if he somehow _knows_. Ridiculous, of course.

Anyway, would it _really_ be Aziraphale's fault? Humans have free will, after all. It is perhaps their most important characteristic. They can choose to sin, given the opportunity, or choose not to. No one _forces_ them. Tempting is merely... a nudge. To see what they'll do. To make them confront their own capacity for choice. There isn't anything wrong with that, surely. Testing humans is very much part of the divine plan, after all.

Right. Yes. He can do this. He _can_. All he needs to do is to go over to the fellow and strike up a conversation about... About what? Fornication? He can do that. He's fairly sure he can do that. It might even be fun, not that he would admit to that out loud.

He begins to rise, mentally rehearsing opening lines as he does so, when he sees the young priest's head snap up and his eyes widen. A moment later, a smile spreads across his face, a smile of uncontrolled delight, soft and warm and absolutely shining with...

With _love_. 

Aziraphale sits down again, hard. He turns his head to follow the priest's gaze, and is met with another smile, another burst of pure, bright love, from someone who's just arrived through the kitchen door. It's another serving girl. She is somewhat plain, perhaps, by the standards of the humans in this time and place, but that smile, that burst of love, makes her so radiantly beautiful that Aziraphale finds his eyes watering, finds his hand rising to clutch at his heart.

She makes her way over to the priest, and the two of them speak to each other with low voices and wide smiles. She touches him briefly, gently on the shoulder, and their love pours out of them in waves.

He ought to be listening to what they're saying. To be gathering intelligence. But instead he simply sits there and basks in the glow of it.

The woman moves off to serve other tables, and the priest looks after her. The smile is still on his face, but his eyes are softening into sadness, and the feeling of love radiating from him begins to shift into something more like longing.

It feels terribly, terribly lonely. It makes _him_ feel terribly lonely.

Before he can think about what he's doing, he stands. 

The priest looks up at him, questioningly, as he approaches. 

"She's very lovely, isn't she?" Aziraphale says.

The priest begins to frame a syllable, the start of a "yes," and stops. "Who?" he says instead. "Oh. I suppose. I... I hadn't noticed." He is a dreadful liar. Somehow, that makes Aziraphale feel for him even more.

"Love is such a precious thing," Aziraphale says, quietly. "It is the greatest gift the Almighty ever gave to His creations, and the most blessed act of which humans are capable." 

The priest is staring at him now, open-mouthed. Aziraphale seems to have let a tiny bit of his angelic radiance shine through. He tries to tone it down, but isn't certain he manages it very well.

"I would very much like to believe," he says, pushing the words out past an inexplicable lump in his throat, "that God treasures such love, wherever it may be found. And that love, real love can only ever bring us closer to God, not push us further away." _Us_? He meant to say "you," of course. Never mind. Rhetorical license. 

The priest looks at him with the expression of a man having a religious revelation. Aziraphale should know. He's been responsible for more than a few of those. 

"Excuse me," the priest says. His voice is little more than a whisper. His eyes have already left the angel beside him and locked once more on his beloved.

Aziraphale watches as he stands, as he goes to the woman and takes her arm. As they exchange their soft, besotted smiles. He follows, miraculously unseen, as they leave the room together. He watches them stumble, laughing, into the apparent privacy of a storage room, watches them kissing as if kissing will save their souls.

Has he done the right thing? The wrong one? He honestly doesn't know. He feels as he did in Eden, when he gave away his sword.

He withdraws, to give them their privacy in truth. He doesn't need to see any more. His job here, whatever it was, is done.

He had intended to stay in Venice for another week or two. Instead, he heads for the docks. A berth has just miraculously come free on a ship set to sail with the morning tide.

** 

They are sitting, he and Crowley, at the same table, drinking the same wine. 

"Didn't expect you back quite so soon," Crowley says.

"Well." Aziraphale shifts in his chair, trying to make himself comfortable. "As you said. It wasn't very difficult."

Crowley raises an eyebrow. "No problems, then? No second thoughts?"

"No," Aziraphale says. Another eyebrow joins the first, but Aziraphale chooses to ignore them both. "It was almost disappointingly easy. I thought I'd have to, I don't know, make a performance of it. Pretend to be quite wicked. That sort of thing. It turns out, no acting was necessary at all."

Crowley looks at him for a long, long moment. Aziraphale wonders what he's thinking. "Well," he finally says, his voice artificially light and airy, "that's humans for you, I suppose."

"Yes." Aziraphale takes a drink of his wine. They haven't improved it in his absence.

"So, you're on board, then? With the Arrangement?" 

Is he? Does he want to do that sort of thing again?

Across the table, Crowley smiles at him, and something inside him, some sad, wistful, lonely thing that's been sitting in his heart since Venice, begins to lift.

"Perhaps," he says. "On a case by case basis."

"Yes, yeah, sure," says Crowley. He looks like he's trying not to give away how delighted he feels, and whatever has taken up residence inside Aziraphale where that strange, sad thing was a moment ago, it stirs in response. 

"You still owe me, of course."

"'Course. I haven't forgotten, angel. You just name it. Whatever you want me to do."

Aziraphale is hit by a sudden, intense memory of the two lovers, kissing in their hidden place. He blinks it away, shakes it back down into the depths of his angelic mind. 

"I haven't decided yet," he says. "We'll need to meet up again, to discuss it. Perhaps... Well, perhaps we should simply make it a regular thing."

The Serpent's answering smile is so happy, so absurdly, devastatingly beautiful, that all he can do is close his eyes against it, until the moment passes.


End file.
